Grocer

Front end asset manager

Wiki

Reference

The purpose of Grocer is to provide an API to

1. build, manage, and initialize Grunt config files based on a manifest file
2. impose modularity on the application, each module having an optional main object (function, class, etc.) that the application can invoke when the module is loaded

Manifest structure

The top level defines the modules. Within each module, there is a container for assets, separated by function (eg. JavaScript or CSS). Optionally, modules might define a classPath, that identifies the path (relative to the global object) that the application is supposed to invoke after loading the module.

{
    "libraries": {
        "assets": {
            "js": [ "src/jquery.js" ]
        }
    },
    "common": {
        "assets": {
            "js": [ "src/app.js" ],
            "css": [ "src/app.css" ]
        }
    },
    "users": {
        "classPath": "app[\"pages\"].Users",
        "assets": {
            "js": [ "src/Users.js" ],
            "css": [ "src/Users.css" ]
        }
    }
}

Using the manifest API

Initializing manifest

var manifest = grocer.Manifest.create(manifestJson);

Fetching asset list for module

manifest.getAssetsForModule('common', 'js').getAssetNames();

/*
[ "src/app.js" ]
*/

Fetching all assets from manifest

manifest.getAssets('js').getAssetNames();

/*
[ "src/jquery.js", "src/app.js", "src/Users.js" ]
*/

Fetching script tag list from manifest

manifest.getAssets('js').toString();

/*
<script src="src/jquery.js"></script>
<script src="src/app.js"></script>
<script src="src/Users.js"></script>
*/

manifest.getAssets('css').toString();

/*
<link rel="stylesheet" href="src/app.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="src/Users.css">
*/

Using the config API

Creating and loading a multi task:

'foo'
    // setting task config
    .toMultiTask({
        target1: {},
        target2: {}
    })

    // associating NPM package
    .setPackageName('grunt-foo')

    // loading package
    .applyTask();

Creating and registering an alias task:

'foo'.toAliasTask()
    // adding subtasks
    .addSubTasks('copy:dev', 'uglify:dev')

    // registering task
    .applyTask();

Creating multi tasks w/ alias tasks for each target

var multiTasks = [
    'foo'.toMultiTask({dev: {}, prod: {}})
        .setPackageName('grunt-foo'),
    'bar'.toMultiTask({dev: {}, prod: {}})
        .setPackageName('grunt-bar')
].toMultiTaskCollection();

multiTasks.toGruntConfig()
    // applying (initializing/merging) config
    .applyConfig()

    // obtaining and adding alias tasks for each target
    .getAliasTasksGroupedByTarget()
    .mergeWith(multiTasks.toGruntTaskCollection())

    // applying (registering/loading) each task
    .applyTask();

As a result of the above, there will be a separate task for targets dev and prod, grouping all tasks that have those targets.

Eg. after setting up the Gruntfile like that, you may issue grunt dev or grunt prod to run all associated tasks.